Sisters of St Joseph
Diamond Jubilarians
Shrine of Mary MacKillop, North Sydney
12 January 2015
Towards the end of the musical “Camelot”, King Arthur sings to a boy this song all
about the boy’s future:
Each evening from December to December,
before you drift to sleep upon your cot,
think back on all the tales that you remember,
called Camelot.
Ask every person if they have heard the story,
and tell it loud and clear if they have not,
that once there was a fleeting glimpse of glory –
called Camelot!
I like to imagine someone must have sung something like that to you Jubilarians over 60
years ago! And what as a Sister of St Joseph you have hoped and tried to do for all that
time, with God’s help, has been to proclaim the story and to encourage others to tell the
story with you, and in your place. You’ve told the story to clergy, to other Religious, to
teachers, to students, to catechists, to parents, to children and young people. The song
calls the story “Camelot.” We call it “The Reign of God.”
Ask every person if they have heard the story,
and tell it loud and clear if they have not,
that once (in Jesus) there was a fleeting glimpse of glory,
called “The Reign of God”!
Your founder, St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, told the story of the Reign of God very,
very well. May her spirit rest upon us today in this holy shrine of her burial. If it
doesn’t, where else is it to be found?
As I have said here before, you won’t find the spirit of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
in written records – as precious as these are – because written records are a means
through which Mary of the Cross’s spirit may come alive in us.
It is in people that the spirit of St Mary MacKillop lives, and it is through people that
the spirit of Mary MacKillop is actively present in the world now! Sisters the spirit of
St Mary of the Cross lives in your religious family – it needs your flesh and blood.
Bishop Peter Ingham’s Homily
Mass for Diamond Jubilarians
12 January 2015
Page 1
Our 28 Diamond Jubilarians share over 1,960 cumulative years of religious life, plus the
years of your nine deceased members added to that.
Through your commitment, you Jubilarians have ensured the spirit of St Mary of the
Cross is alive and well. We congratulate you, we give thanks for you, and offer this
Mass for you and for the eternal repose of the deceased members of your group. What a
joy and affirmation for you to have celebrated Mary’s Beatification after you had spent
40 years living her charism and at Mary’s Canonisation you had spent 55 years living St
Mary’s charism. In this Year of Consecrated Life, the Pope wants you to look to your
past with gratitude and rediscover your founding charism, so as to passionately engage
the present and surrender the future to Christ our Hope.
We are all here today – your family by nature (your blood relatives); your family by
grace (your religious community; and the wider community of the baptised) – around
the Altar of God to celebrate with you your Diamond Jubilee Eucharist in thanksgiving
for 60 years of blessings that you have both received yourselves and mediated to others.
You can say with the Prophet Isaiah, “My whole being shall exult in my God.” (Isaiah
61:10)
To help you get their 60 years in perspective, our Jubilarians were professed one year
before TV began in Australia and 11before decimal currency, not to mention 14 years
before Armstrong walked on the moon. Gladwrap, Velcro and credit cards were yet to
be invented, as were videos, CDs, DVDs, word processors, laptops, mobile phones,
palm pilots, IPad, smartphones and MP3s. When our Jubilarians made their profession
in 1955, ‘time-sharing’ meant togetherness, a ‘chip’ meant a piece of wood or was made
from potato, ‘hardware’ meant hardware, and ‘software’ was not even a word!
In the mid-1950s, cigarette smoking was fashionable, ‘grass’ was mowed, ‘coke’ was a
cold drink, ‘pot’ was something you cooked in and ice was in the ice chest.
That was the world into which these young women set out as Sisters of St Joseph of the
Sacred Heart to be, using words of the Irish writer John O’Donohue, to be something of
a spiritual midwife, to namely help others give birth to the divine that stirs within, and,
in dark and bleak times, to show others that there is a window where they sense only a
wall.
Having given your lives to God, abiding in Jesus as branches on the vine, you set out, in
the vitality of your youth and in the spirit of Mary MacKillop, to spread the love of God
to eager little children – here and across the Tasman. I started kindergarten in 1946
under the Sisters of St Joseph at Naremburn.
Now, might I say, from our vantage point of a pre-television five or six year old, you
Sisters seemed fairly senior, you were curiously formidable in your long brown habits
and jingling rosary beads, you were authority figures whose directions we children
ignored at our peril. You were people who seemed to know everything and whose
advice could be safely followed.
Bishop Peter Ingham’s Homily
Mass for Diamond Jubilarians
12 January 2015
Page 2
Yet at the same time, you also demonstrated a lovely feminine humanity in your care
and love for the children, especially to those who were ill, poor, troubled, disabled or
disadvantaged. Added to this was your wonderful influence in the parishes in which
you served – by your goodness, your practical help, your prayer, your teaching and your
example, along with the pastoral care of families you visited and assisted. The support
you gave to the clergy was dedicated and sometimes had to be heroic. As St John told
us, “Love is from God, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (Jn 4:8)
While the world has changed dramatically for all of us since 1955, the values and ideals
that brought you to make your religious profession as a Sister of St Joseph, are as old as
the New Testament and as modern as tomorrow.
On behalf of all present, I greet each one of you Jubilarians with affection. For 60 years
you have carried out an especially-appreciated service to the Gospel, which you have
well integrated into the various social and pastoral realities of the Church. So, on behalf
of the Church, I thank you for your dedication to Jesus Christ, for your commitment to
the Church, and for your service, all embodying the charism of St Mary of the Cross
MacKillop.
Pope Francis has given us this “Year of Consecrated Life” from Advent to February
2016 because consecrated men and women have always been a precious presence in the
Church, partly because you bear special prophetic witness to the unity and dignity of
each person and you witness to our unity as the People of God throughout the world. I
thank you for the witness you give as stewards of God’s mysteries and for how you
consistently face up to the challenges of spreading the Gospel posed by modern-day
culture in such a cosmopolitan and secular society.
The Church and the world interact in a context that is culturally and socially diverse.
This demands of you, courageous fidelity to the charism that distinguishes you.
In this Year of Consecrated Life, Pope Francis is calling Religious men and women to
wake up the world in a spirit of joy and hope. His horizon is unity and communion
amongst all those who are in Consecrated Life, as well as within the entire Church: he
wants all the baptised to appreciate and support Religious Life, and for us to connect
with Religious in the Orthodox and Reformed Traditions and even with those living a
life fully given to God in the other great non-Christian religions.
The Pope wants Religious Sisters, Brothers and Clergy to know and show that our life is
truly happy and fulfilled. “We Priests and Religious are the only living example of our
own ways of life. Others in the Church, especially young people and parents, need to
hear from us that we strongly believe in our way of life, that we have a deeply-felt sense
of personal mission, that our real and deepest joy is our calling from the Lord Jesus.”
(Donal Neary SJ)
Pope Francis wants Religious Sisters, Brothers and Clergy to be prophetic, pointing to
the reality of God, who is life and love, made flesh in Jesus, pointing by our lives, by
the concrete Gospel work we do, so we can offer a true alternative to the mirage of the
Bishop Peter Ingham’s Homily
Mass for Diamond Jubilarians
12 January 2015
Page 3
various utopias that are presented by the secular world. Prophets have a God-given
ability to scrutinise the signs of the times in which they live.
The Pope wants the various Religious charisms to mutually enrich one another and
serve as a source of apostolic synergy and help one another.
Catholic Religious Australia (CRA) exemplifies this. The Pope wants Religious Sisters,
Brothers and Clergy to be alert to what God, and the world we live in, is asking of us.
Pope Francis said every form of Consecrated Life has been born of the Holy Spirit’s call
to follow Jesus as the Gospel teaches. For the various founders he said the Gospel was
the absolute rule, whereas every other rule was meant merely to be an expression of the
Gospel and a means of living the Gospel to the full. For the founders the ideal was
Christ; they sought to be interiorly united to Jesus like branches on the vine and thus to
be able to say with St Paul, “For me to live is Christ.” Your vows are intended as a
concrete expression of this passionate love. The Pope also mentions the incalculable
contributions made to the Church by Religious who are forever etched into the Church’s
historical memory.
What Pope Francis desires is that each and every Consecrated woman and man will be a
shining and living Gospel for all to see. This is how you will enrich your Congregation
and those with whom you will come in contact.
Finally, you probably find it hard to believe such a significant number of years has
passed so relatively quick, as you look back though the happy times, the difficult times,
the inspiring times and the rewarding times.
Under God and through God we all find that many miracles of grace have happened on
our journey, both to us and to those to whom we have the privilege of ministering.
While this is abundantly clear in hindsight, nevertheless we still have to progress in
darkness and faith, yet confident because of past blessings.
So Sister Jubilarians, rest a while and saviour the journey up until now as you have over
these days - give thanks to the Lord. We all share with you the prayer asking God to
“recharge the batteries” for the rest of the journey ahead of you. May the Lord enable
you to continue to be a great witness to his love as you exercise St Mary MacKillop’s
charism with your characteristic compassion and good humour.
Happy anniversary – good health, healing, peace of mind and heart.
Most Rev Peter W Ingham
BISHOP OF WOLLONGONG
Bishop Peter Ingham’s Homily
Mass for Diamond Jubilarians
12 January 2015
Page 4